I can't relate to modern gaming anymore

[Steamflogger Boss]

Sekiro fucking rules. New GNG does too.

[BulletMagnet]

Maybe I should make a thread where I can't relate to arcade gaming anymore.

Just be prepared for folks to Photoshop a sombrero and tacos onto your likeness.

[evil_ash_xero]

I understand. I liked last gen, but I've barely bought anything this gen. I'm still waiting for a good run of games to come out.
Seems like everyone's wanting to do Naughty Dog style movie games. Let's hope for the best, I suppose.

Sekiro fucking rules. New GNG does too.

It is pretty dope, but the learning curve is STEEP. Took me numerous playthroughs to actually kind of get decent at it (in my mind).
I didn't beat the Demon of Hatred (legit) until my 6th playthrough, I think.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Oh yeah it's balls hard. Much harder on a fundamental on the souls games where they give you a lot of strong options and things resembling "easy mode".

I beat that mfer Demon of Hatred on my first run. We just, uh, don't talk about how long that took.

[Sumez]

Arcade purists need to check out PSN trophies or achievements. Really, they're often exactly the sort of challenges you're looking for - the 1cc, the no bomb run, ultra hard mode clear, etc. They make even titles that you might otherwise deride as too hand-holdy or whatever into old-school challenges.

You'd be surprised how many arcade ports don't have the 1CC as an achievement.

The idea behind achievements is cool, but it very quickly became a collectathon thing instead. People who play games to get achievements, play just for those, rather than to enjoy the games or challenge themselves. It's crazy how many people buy certain games just because they have easy-to-get achievements.
In general it seems like developers will add achievements based on anything that takes time and dedication (the ol' grind), but apparently achievements that actually require so much skill that you can't expect everyone to be able to do them, seems to be generally frowned upon.

[Durandal]

Arcade purists need to check out PSN trophies or achievements. Really, they're often exactly the sort of challenges you're looking for - the 1cc, the no bomb run, ultra hard mode clear, etc. They make even titles that you might otherwise deride as too hand-holdy or whatever into old-school challenges.

You'd be surprised how many arcade ports don't have the 1CC as an achievement.

The idea behind achievements is cool, but it very quickly became a collectathon thing instead. People who play games to get achievements, play just for those, rather than to enjoy the games or challenge themselves. It's crazy how many people buy certain games just because they have easy-to-get achievements.
In general it seems like developers will add achievements based on anything that takes time and dedication (the ol' grind), but apparently achievements that actually require so much skill that you can't expect everyone to be able to do them, seems to be generally frowned upon.

Is this a console thing? I know PSN and XBL liked to reward you with extra points and goodies for getting cheevos, which must've made them all the more extrinsically appealing to get. Meanwhile as far as I know, cheevos on Steam are used less to show off your gaming skillz to others and more to see the progress other people made in the game. Like whether they booted up the game at all (only 51.7% of people who own this game unlocked this achievement).

[Steamflogger Boss]

Arcade purists need to check out PSN trophies or achievements. Really, they're often exactly the sort of challenges you're looking for - the 1cc, the no bomb run, ultra hard mode clear, etc. They make even titles that you might otherwise deride as too hand-holdy or whatever into old-school challenges.

You'd be surprised how many arcade ports don't have the 1CC as an achievement.

The idea behind achievements is cool, but it very quickly became a collectathon thing instead. People who play games to get achievements, play just for those, rather than to enjoy the games or challenge themselves. It's crazy how many people buy certain games just because they have easy-to-get achievements.
In general it seems like developers will add achievements based on anything that takes time and dedication (the ol' grind), but apparently achievements that actually require so much skill that you can't expect everyone to be able to do them, seems to be generally frowned upon.

I know a person like this. She got the plat trophy in the original Demons Souls in every region, lol.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's crazy how many people buy certain games just because they have easy-to-get achievements.

Yeah. The game industry is using this to cash in on people who value meaningless gamer points and will jump through the hoops to get them and move on to the next game.

In general it seems like developers will add achievements based on anything that takes time and dedication (the ol' grind), but apparently achievements that actually require so much skill that you can't expect everyone to be able to do them, seems to be generally frowned upon.

This seems to be true too. At most, big games will add one or two major achievements but the rest of them are either standard completion fare, or gimmicky challenges you pretty much have to look at the list to know what you're supposed to do, because it's unlikely you'd do it naturally.

[Gamer707b]

For those have have said, "try the games," like others have said before, I too have tried A LOT to like AAA gaming. I remember early in the PS4's life, I went to Black Friday and bought a bunch of games, some would consider them excellent. They were a good 6 or 7 games. Played them all in various amounts , but they felt like I was just being taken for a adventure. As others have stated, no real challenge. Just this "epic, story driven experience". Around that same time, I started getting the feeling that after most of my life gaming, maybe I was just losing interest. Maybe this is it. I was okay with it if that was the case. Gaming felt that I almost had to force myself to do, cause I've done it all my life.

Then, I ended up getting a Wii U from my wife and kids and started to have a bit more fun. Bought a Indie game ( forgot the name ) on the system and LOVED it. All of a sudden, I was having FUN!! Started to buy more games on my Wii U and some indies on my PS4 and KAPOOSH!! I was enjoying myself more and more. So, in a nutshell, it turned out, I wasn't "out of gaming", but was playing these shiny, new, "story driven epics" that were completely not my thing. I just wanted to have fun again playing the most pure, fun induced genres I grew up with. Shoot Em Ups, Beat em Ups, platformers, etc. The thought of playing Red Deal Redemption 2 for 100 hours doesn't sound fun to me. I enjoy something that is short and I can play over and over again to get better.

I will occasionally still play AAA. Love what Capcom has been doing with the Resident Evil games and I think Naughty Dog rocks. Also Nintendo, for all you can say about them, have still kept their focus on their very polished gameplay philosophy from over 35 years ago, but buy and large, indies are keeping me in the game. Pun intended. They don't feel like they were designed by a bunch of suits sitting in a boardroom that know nothing about the essence of games. Indie games, not all, but many, feel like they're from the heart and they were made for me. Having companies like M2 is a dream and the passion that oozes out of their work is what I game for. Not saying that "AAA sucks and nobody should play them". If you like and enjoy them, that's awesome, but most of them don't appeal to me anymore. This is a fun thread BTW

[Volteccer_Jack]

The thought of playing Red Deal Redemption 2 for 100 hours doesn't sound fun to me. I enjoy something that is short and I can play over and over again to get better.

So, just to try and give another perspective. I like Ghost of Tsushima a lot. But I don't think of it as one big "experience" or something. There's a world map, and lots of significant locations of various sizes and types. Each one of these is a "stage", some are over in thirty seconds, some will last much longer. I play the game because I enjoy these "stages", and working to master them is interesting and feels rewarding. If and when it stops being interesting or fun, I stop the playing the game.

For reference, I consider Red Dead 2 to be a garbage excuse for a game so I'm not defending that particular AAA disaster. (although it does have the best weather effects I've ever seen in a video game, which is a bit of a tragedy)

[Sumez]

Ghost of Tsushima was "enjoyable" enough for me to play through almost all of it, but at the same time it also left me with such a sour taste in my mouth it made me swear to never play another game that's structured like one of these checklists of icons on your map.
It's like 90% compulsion and 10% actual fun at most. And in the case of Tsushima, the pretense of "gameplay" is almost non-existant - at least the spider-man game let me string together fun combos.

But it's a very pretty game.

[davyK]

Most mainstream gaming doesn't interest me any more, and hasn't for quite a while. I'm older too (mid 50s now) so I was 11 or 12 when videogames and Space Invaders hit the arcades. Arcade style gaming has always been my preference. A narrative led game requires too much time and all that grinding and building up XP etc just feel like work to me.

I want escapism and the more out of whack a game looks the better for me.

Current gen gaming is great - driving games look spectacular. The environments that people can now play in are stunning. It gets little interest rom me but I'm glad it's there because it gets more people playing which I think is a good thing.

I'm hung up on not continuing, high scores and best times. Love arcade driving games like Daytona, Sega Rally, F-Zero, MK etc. Like a good time trial mode too but not too much fiddling about with car settings.

Like scoring games like shmups, video pinball. I used to play lots of 2D platformers but that's faded for me now somewhat. But I'll still play run and gunners like Ghosts n Goblins or Metal Slug.

Love action/puzzle games like Tetris, Dr. Mario Mr. Driller etc. esp in 2P versus.

I'm still quite the fan of Nintendo because they create lots of local MP games - and I am very fond of that - brings me back to the early Pong and 2600 days when local MP was prevalent. Games can be very social. Nintendo consoles in my house get a lot of family local MP. But I also got a real kick out of Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy - 2 astounding single player games. Superb entertainment.

I also have a taste for off kilter stuff from Japan. Vib Ribbon, Bishi Bashi, Donkey Konga, WarioWare, Power Shovel, Kurushi.... Anything that looks and plays a bit different and rewards skillful play instead of perserverance. There's nothing turns me off a game more than seeing a screenshot comprising of an avatar running around in a 3D environment

It's a question of knowing what you like. There's enough games around in each genre now to not worry about missing something.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Ghost of Tsushima was "enjoyable" enough for me to play through almost all of it, but at the same time it also left me with such a sour taste in my mouth it made me swear to never play another game that's structured like one of these checklists of icons on your map.
It's like 90% compulsion and 10% actual fun at most. And in the case of Tsushima, the pretense of "gameplay" is almost non-existant - at least the spider-man game let me string together fun combos.

But it's a very pretty game.

If it ever feels like "compulsion" I drop a game instantly. I have zero tolerance for completionism. I played Tsushima bc the combat and stealth mechanics were fun and nuanced and working to master them kept me engaged, that's literally it. (the story was decent too)

The recent Spider-Man game was almost good but the devs screwed the pooch quite a bit. There's literally more time spent playing as normal non-powered humans (or Peter pretending to be a non-powered human) then there is time spent fighting supervillains. The combat was kinda fun but half-baked and very shallow. And while the general traversal mechanics are quite good, the game never actually does anything with them except for a couple gimmicky "timed race" side missions. (And the story spends half the runtime building up a major character, only to have his heelturn take a total of about five seconds, dude literally sees a news report he doesn't like and decides maybe being evil is fine after all, even Kylo Ren had a better excuse for shooting up his school) So, unfortunately, Web of Shadows remains the best 3D spooderman game. Fortunately though we have Ninja Five-O heroically serving as the best Spider-Man video game of all time, to keep us comforted while the Spider-Man license gets dragged through the mud over and over again.

[XoPachi]

how did they fuck up halo

three
times
in a row

[Sumez]

Three? Aren't there like five Halo games now?

[Steamflogger Boss]

Three? Aren't there like five Halo games now?

The first 3 games are pretty good.

The series is irrevocably fucked though, if you prefer the earlier entries. Changes have been made and they aren't going back.

[XoPachi]

Three? Aren't there like five Halo games now?

Halo 4, 5, and Infinite. They're complete garbage. Infinite COULD be salvaged but they dont seem to care.

[Sumez]

Ah. I only played the first, didn't have the patience to finish it...

[Sengoku Strider]

how did they fuck up halo

three
times
in a row

I mean, they didn't. For 4 & 5 they made competent AAA games with balanced multiplayer that just had an impossible bar to live up to. You can't just throw together a Bungie-level division, there just aren't that many top level devs out there sitting around needing jobs.

Heck, even Bungie couldn't quite live up to being Bungie. If year 1 vanilla Destiny 1&2 had to be put out there as finished products, everyone would be talking about how Bungie fell off and couldn't cut it without Microsoft's backing. They were rougghhhh. Luckily they had the talent and culture to rethink the wheel and hit two grand slams with Taken King & Forsaken to save those games (and even those hit with insanely unbalanced multiplayer that took months to sort out). It's actually pretty jarring to run playlist strikes from D2 year 1 where the script is following the Marvel 'zippy banter' template, then get rotated into strikes from the rest of the expansions that are y'know, better written.

With Halo Infinite, it sounds like 343 has had a pretty toxic culture which hurt its retention, as well as being hit by covid. The delays seem to have been caused by genuine incompetence, and involved things like code getting deleted and management setting fantasy-land milestones they had no idea how to deliver on.

[ED-057]

They say that quantity has a quality all its own. A bigger pile of 99% rubbish still has a likewise bigger sliver of 1% non-rubbish. It's a good thing, since the world of games is certainly flush with things I wouldn't pay the slightest attention to, like online games, games with DRM, games that only run on some spyware OS, and games that are meant to be played via analog sticks (which have sucked since the Atari 5200 and will always suck).

[Creamy Goodness]

I mostly play retro as most of my gaming is built around nostalgia, but I like to keep some modern games around as after awhile playing old games that require obsessively repetitive play of a half hour of game can become grating after some time. That is why I like the Switch. Kind of the best of both worlds in terms of games available. And not sure if they can be considered new as they are remakes, but FFVII Remake and RE2 remake are some of my favorite games of all time. Nier Automata is also up there for me.

I also don't really get on my high horse about games especially when it comes to challenge. There are plenty of newer difficult games out there. Plus with multiplayer the difficulty of many games can technically scale infinitely.

[Vanguard]

Sounds like it's time to take the doujin pill, OP.

[Durandal]

They say that quantity has a quality all its own. A bigger pile of 99% rubbish still has a likewise bigger sliver of 1% non-rubbish. It's a good thing, since the world of games is certainly flush with things I wouldn't pay the slightest attention to, like online games, games with DRM, games that only run on some spyware OS, and games that are meant to be played via analog sticks (which have sucked since the Atari 5200 and will always suck).

Another thing to point out is that any year on any platform will be filled with a disproportionate amount of rubbish and shovelware. It only appears like it's more of an issue today, because when looking at the past, time filters out all the garbage so only the masterpieces, hidden gems, catastrophic failures, and games worth remembering remain. In a few years time people will look back on 2022 and remember only the best parts that are worth remembering, while game delvers occasionally dig up a hidden gem for the public to properly re-appreciate. It's why people are still talking about MGR:R and Fallout: New Vegas, and not Fallout 4 or Bioshock Infinite, despite all the critical praise they received at launch.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Another thing to point out is that any year on any platform will be filled with a disproportionate amount of rubbish and shovelware. It only appears like it's more of an issue today, because when looking at the past, time filters out all the garbage so only the masterpieces, hidden gems, catastrophic failures, and games worth remembering remain. In a few years time people will look back on 2022 and remember only the best parts that are worth remembering, while game delvers occasionally dig up a hidden gem for the public to properly re-appreciate. It's why people are still talking about MGR:R and Fallout: New Vegas, and not Fallout 4 or Bioshock Infinite, despite all the critical praise they received at launch.

Bit of a truism that every generation of people sees the next generation as young fools ruining what came before. Perusal of Ye Olden Jnternet (in the original latin there was no 'i') will quickly find you plenty of posts by people lamenting the fall of gaming or similar sentiment. Exhibit A:

It's very obvious to me that in general, game designers have started to
rely on the all the magnificent hardware available to them and not on
thier own creativity.

Yes, it was a rough time for hardcore gamers back then, when all the games were just glorified tech demos for their pretty graphics, in 1990.

[o.pwuaioc]

Another thing to point out is that any year on any platform will be filled with a disproportionate amount of rubbish and shovelware. It only appears like it's more of an issue today, because when looking at the past, time filters out all the garbage so only the masterpieces, hidden gems, catastrophic failures, and games worth remembering remain. In a few years time people will look back on 2022 and remember only the best parts that are worth remembering, while game delvers occasionally dig up a hidden gem for the public to properly re-appreciate. It's why people are still talking about MGR:R and Fallout: New Vegas, and not Fallout 4 or Bioshock Infinite, despite all the critical praise they received at launch.

Bit of a truism that every generation of people sees the next generation as young fools ruining what came before. Perusal of Ye Olden Jnternet (in the original latin there was no 'i') will quickly find you plenty of posts by people lamenting the fall of gaming or similar sentiment. Exhibit A:

It's very obvious to me that in general, game designers have started to
rely on the all the magnificent hardware available to them and not on
thier own creativity.

Yes, it was a rough time for hardcore gamers back then, when all the games were just glorified tech demos for their pretty graphics, in 1990.

The dude had a solid point. One, he's not complaining about all games back then, but the scarcity you see in arcades. (You have to read the whole thread, not just the parts that you want to score a point with.) He name drops Smash TV as a decent game and Hard Drivin' as "more than decent." But you also got to AtariAge and some people there still complain about all the hop and bop games that came out after Mario, which ruined real arcade games. There certainly is a major difference between Mario and the golden era of arcade games that had come out several years prior.

Heck, even I complained about the awful "3D crazy", and though I got an N64 when it came out and PS1 a few years later, I wasn't really all that impressed compared to the awesomeness of two gens prior. I ended up playing my Genesis and SNES far more often. For a while, my most played game on the PS1 was Namco Museum.

And I think we all knew then and know now that there were too many fighting games, too many beat em ups that were just clones of the best games that came out. But damn when a game was good, it was really good. I can't say the same for many games recently. And Street Fighter II was a fucking blockbuster, not some indie schlack that some hipster worked on in his basement and released on Steam with all the other shit.

Some people can tolerate the slow build up of BS; others have their breaking point.

[BulletMagnet]

They say that quantity has a quality all its own. A bigger pile of 99% rubbish still has a likewise bigger sliver of 1% non-rubbish.

There's obviously no way to quantitatively prove this one way or the other, but I'm honestly not convinced this is true; I'd like to hear anyone argue that there's not vastly more irredeemable trash out there nowadays than ever, and while I readily concede that sure, more good stuff has appeared as well, at least in my own experience searching in vain for "hidden gems" and, even after so much time spent scrolling past countless obvious hack jobs, the utter cavalcade of disappointment nearly every time I attempt to give an unknown game the benefit of the doubt, I remain highly skeptical that the rise in each is anywhere near parity.

It is admittedly something of a moot point, since the "1%" is indeed vast enough by now that pretty much anyone can keep themselves plenty entertained without having to dig all that deep, but if you do want to attempt to go much beyond the more obvious hits I still say you're in for more pain than ever before along the way.

[Durandal]

searching in vain for "hidden gems"

That's the neat thing, you don't.

That's what chatting with online friends (and watching one's parasocial friends on YouTube) is for, showing eachother this cool new game that everyone else should be playing. If you got enough friends with varied (and sophisticated) tastes that vaguely align with yours, you can go a long way with finding interesting shit. Then you show whatever neat shit you stumbled upon to your friends, and the cycle of life continues. I guess gaming forums are also a substitute.

[Marc]

Modern gaming is fucking incredible. Between the Evercade VS and Arcade Archives / Ages / Toaplan etc stuff, I've access to more legit arcade classics than I'd have ever have thought possible. I've access to a curated library of Amiga / C64 / Speccy games at the touch of a button. And I've got a backlog of quality stuff that I know I'll love when I get around to it - Returnal, Deathloop, Demons remake, Elden Ring, Wreckfest to name but a few. There are more games than I've got the time for, but what a trivial complaint.

[BulletMagnet]

That's the neat thing, you don't.

As I said, it is kind of a moot point, since there is a lot of good stuff out there and more sources than ever to help filter out the garbage, but if abandoning "traditional" hidden gem searches altogether is pretty much The Way You Have To Approach Gaming Now because attempting to do it yourself will drive you nuts before you find anything even halfway decent, methinks that, if anything, adds credence to my impression that, while games of all manner of quality continue to increase in abundance, the trash has multiplied much, much faster than the good stuff.

[kid aphex]

I can only speak for myself:

I have learned that there’s a difference between something (a game, for example) that inspires me vs. something that is engaging.
Nowadays, entertainment products (games, movies, tv shows) are all very well crafted to be engaging to aspects of our brain chemistry that are habit forming.
As I got older, I noticed that I became more easily addicted to modern games (played them for more hours) than classic games, but still ended up feeling hollow inside afterwards.
All the money and effort being put into modern games and they simply didn’t light my fire the way old-school games did!

Part of this is a result of mainstream cultural values of aesthetics and design shifting away from those I appreciate, and part of it is a result of me finding greater inspirational value in spaces outside of gaming, et al.

In any case: None of us owe our time to anything uninspiring. Just listen to your heart and follow what moves you.